1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to the manufacture of printed circuit boards and panels that are used in the electronics industry, and more particularly, to an automatic system that feeds, laminates, unloads, stores and transfers laminated panels to subsequent systems for further processing.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Automatic laminators for securing sheets of photopolymer dry film simultaneously to the opposite sides of a succession of panels are known in the prior art. Thus, in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,464,221 granted on Aug. 7, 1984, there is disclosed an automatic laminator for laminating photopolymer resist dry film onto each of a succession of printed circuit boards or panels. The laminator operates with a single roll of photoresist dry film to effect single sheet wrap around lamination of each of the panels and removal of the polyethylene cover sheet that is provided for protecting and facilitating the handling of the photoresist dry film. Following such lamination, the panels are delivered to a panel stacker and arranged in an upright lean-to fashion for cooling and chemical stabilization or setting.
It has been the practice following such lamination to transfer the panels manually to a subsequent system, for example, an exposure unit, for imaging. Such manual handling of the laminated panels not only adds to the cost of manufacture but subjects the panels to risk of contamination.
There is thus a need and a demand to provide an automatically operative unit or system that not only feeds and laminates each of a succession of panels, in turn, but which also, during a post lamination period for each of the panels in succession, automatically unloads, stores and transfers the panels to a subsequent system for further processing.
By reference herein, the disclosure of my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,464,221 is made a part hereof.